n the magnificent stairway again. She
blew the light out in the hall, and, opening the front door, stood with
him for a silent moment on the threshold. Then they shook hands once
more, and with a whispered good-night, parted.

Celia, returning to the blue and yellow room, lighted a cigarette and
helped herself to some Benedictine in the glass which Theron had used.
She looked meditatively at this little glass for a moment, turning it
about in her fingers with a smile. The smile warmed itself suddenly into
a joyous laugh. She tossed the glass aside, and, holding out her flowing
skirts with both hands, executed a swinging pirouette in front of the
gravely beautiful statue of the armless woman.

CHAPTER XX

It was apparent to the Rev. Theron Ware, from the very first moment of
waking next morning, that both he and the world had changed over night.
The metamorphosis, in the harsh toils of which he had been laboring
blindly so long, was accomplished. He stood forth, so to speak, in a new
skin, and looked about him, with perceptions of quite an altered kind,
upon what seemed in every way a fresh existence. He lacked even the
impulse to turn round and inspect the cocoon from which he had emerged.
Let the past bury the past. He had no vestige of interest in it.

The change was not premature. He found himself not in the least confused
by it, or frightened. Before he had finished shaving, he knew himself
to be easily and comfortably at home in his new state, and master of all
its requirements.

It seemed as if Alice, too, recognized that he had become another man,
when he went down and took his chair at the breakfast table. They had
exchanged no words since their parting in the depot-yard the previous
evening--an event now faded off into remote vagueness in Theron's
mind. He smiled brilliantly in answer to the furtive, half-sullen,
half-curious glance she stole at him, as she brought the dishes in.

"Ah! potatoes warmed up in cream!" he said, with hearty pleasure in his
tone. "What a mind-reader you are, to be sure!"

"I'm glad you're feeling so much better," she said briefly, taking her
seat.

"Better?" he returned. "I'm a new being!"

She ventured to look him over more freely, upon this assurance. He
perceived and catalogued, one by one, the emotions which the small brain
was expressing through those shallow blue eyes of hers. She was
turning over this, that, and the other hostile thought and childish
grievance